In the 1980s, personal computers of various types became popular in business and home settings. Originally, a person's electronic files could be kept on removable “floppy disks” that had limited storage. Soon, higher-density disk storage became popular since it allowed people to store larger quantities of files. The cost of disk storage continues to drop, providing little incentive to curb the proliferation of files.
However, the incentive to curb the proliferation of files is that file systems can become unmanageable. Finding files can be a major chore. The systems for indexing files on content or other information are less than fulfilling. Such systems require that the user at least know enough about the file to find it. Unspecific searches can result in numerous files to sort through before finding the file or files of interest.
File systems can also require great effort to maintain because files and other stored entities have differing value to the system operators. What is needed is a way to identify which files have what value.
Most file systems allow a specific set of attributes to be attributed to individual files. For example, some files may be marked “read-only,” meaning that they can be read but not overwritten. Other files may be marked “hidden,” meaning that they are not to appear on normal directory listings.
Many files systems also allow other file attributes such as the author or the modification date. Such attributes are primarily informational, not functional. For example, a file by one author does not automatically behave differently in the file system from a file by another author. Informational attributes can nevertheless be useful as a file search criteria (e.g. searching for files by a particular author).